To mark the franchise’s 50th anniversary, George Takei beamed down to impart some Trekkie wisdom and thank fans for supporting Star Trek in all of its incarnations. The iconic actor’s appearance was the highlight of the weekend—Takei is as awesome in real life as he is onscreen (and on Facebook). Here are the highlights from the convention’s best Q&A:

On His Early Predictions About Star Trek’s Potential

Back in the day, Takei says he thought, “‘I smell something that we’re going to be very proud of, because I’ve seen all the actors, they’re wonderful actors, and the writing is very good—and that means we’re going to last one season.’ Because all the shows that I loved back then were cancelled after the first season, and they were all quality shows. How wrong I was.”

On The Longevity Of The Star Trek Franchise

“Here we are 50 years later, we’ve got 14 feature films now, four spin-off series… and another TV series coming up. So, five children that we’ve given birth to. We’re very proud parents and we love all of our children and we have you to thank for that.”

On How To Spot An Original Star Trek Fan

“No hair (or with hair but it’s pretty white).”

On A Superhero/Star Trek Crossover

“It’s a very imaginative idea… We always take about imagination and creating the unthinkable, but in that case it’s not the unthinkable—because you’ve thought of it—it’s the legally doable. Star Trek is owned by Paramount and CBS and Superman is owned by some other corporation. You can have a whole battalion of lawyers and I don’t think that would be worked out.”

On His Favourite Sport

Takei recounted the story of how he got to play a rapier-wielding Sulu on an episode of Star Trek, landing the storyline for his character after swearing that he was a fencing pro. He took his first lesson a month before they shot the episode.

On Where Star Trek Will Be In Another 50 Years

“Thank you for this 50th birthday party you’ve given us and we’ll see you at the 100th anniversary. I’ll be there!”